He nodded, glancing up from the book. He seemed to be drawing rather than writing. “When did you see her last? When she dressed your hair for the opera?”
“Yes.”
“How did she seem? Was she happy? Anxious?”
“I think she was a little anxious,” Griz admitted. “Certainly, she was distracted.” She swallowed. “I didn’t ask her why.” She straightened her shoulders determinedly. “Why were you there? In the alley?”
“I was looking for her. She sent a note to me in the good doctor’s box at the opera, asking me to meet her outside the theatre at the next interval. I was worried enough to go early, which is when I ran into you. But she wasn’t outside, so I went looking.”
“She left the theatre just ahead of you. I saw her.”
He frowned, shaking his head. “Perhaps she was hiding in a doorway? Or around the other side of the theatre? I walked to one side, then came back. When I glanced up the other, I saw a woman’s figure disappearing around the corner. That must have been you, but I followed in case it was her.”
“Why would she ask you to meet her and then hide from you?” Griz demanded.
“I have no idea. Unless she had seen someone who frightened her. Perhaps she was hiding from you because she knew she should not be there.”
“Oh dear. I hope I did not cause her to run into danger. She never seemed frightened of me before. To be honest, it was more in her nature to brazen it out.”
“Did you let her?” He seemed genuinely interested.
Griz shrugged. “I told her Mrs. MacKenna—our housekeeper—would dismiss her if she caught her. She is a lot more terrifying than I.”
“I’m not sure I can imagine that. You broke me out of prison single-handedly, surrounded by policemen.”
She regarded him suspiciously. “Are you making fun of me?”
“Far from it. I am wondering how many people underestimate you.”
She wasn’t quite sure what to make of that, so she asked bluntly, “Do you have any idea who might have killed Nancy, or why?”
“Unless it was a random attack by thieves who ran off when they heard you and I blundering about, no.”
“Random thieves who just happened to be in possession of my father’s dagger?”
“Don’t you think it more likely that Nancy took the dagger?”
“Nancy would not steal!” she exclaimed.
“But she might have borrowed it for her protection. But we are speculating without evidence. We don’t even know if it was the dagger that killed her.”
“Was there blood on it?” she said, jumping to her feet in agitation.
He rose with her, the open notebook and pencil in his hand. “I don’t think so. But it could have been wiped clean by accident or design. Or any blood there might not even have been Nancy’s.”
The sheer weight of what they did not know crushed her for a moment. But Nancy’s poor, dead face was still there before her eyes, awaiting justice, not just from the law, it seemed, but from Grizelda, who should at least have asked the maid what troubled her.
“Will you help me find out?” she asked.
He stared down at her, a shabby, unshaven stranger of dangerous political persuasions. Conflicting emotions swirled in his eyes, among them, surely, a hint of desperation.
“Yes,” he said reluctantly. “But not until I wash and change my clothes.”
She grinned at him. “Thank you! Do you have a card?”
“A card?” he asked, apparently baffled.
“With your name and address,” she explained.
His lips twisted. “No.”
“Oh.” She darted across to the table, where she showed him paper and pen. “Then write it here, if you please, so that I can find you if I need to.”
He hesitated, then did as she asked, leaning over the desk to scrawl the few words. The notebook lay open on the table in front of him.
She watched his face while he wrote, wondering what sort of an ally he would make. Behind the masculine beauty and the self-confessed revolutionary, she recognized both intelligence and pain. A man who had suffered in ways she could only imagine. At this moment, he presented as much of a mystery as Nancy.
It might yet prove to be a mistake—using him to learn about the part of Nancy’s life she had no knowledge of.
He pushed the paper toward her, glancing up in time to catch her staring.
“Thank you,” she said hastily, picking up the piece of paper and folding it twice. As he reached for the notebook, she saw what he